ABSTRACT

This chapter draws on primary and secondary data to explore workforce dynamics and factors affecting rehabilitative service provision in the Tasmanian alcohol and other drugs (AOD) sector. The themes and findings reveal timely insights into the professional dispositions, cultures and identity of the field. The reorganisation of rehabilitation work has yielded improvements in service provision, but some of the shifts have not been without wider consequences. Against a wider backdrop, the discourse of change and reform is often, implicitly or explicitly, associated with improving effectiveness and productivity. The chapter also includes appraisal of the major strengths evident within the sector. First, local patterns of drug use are briefly outlined as they are relevant to the profile of AOD services provision. The aetiology of substance use and misuse is multi-factorial; however, local social and economic conditions and inequalities are relevant to the social epidemiology of substance use and the social determinants of drug-related crime in the state.